Deep Space

After five years of development, Jeff Bezos announced in Twitter this week Blue Origin has successfully completed a hot fire test of its fully reusable BE-4 engine. The hot fire test marks an important milestone for both Blue Origin and the next step in human exploration of space. https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/921114359119560704 Blue Origin's orbital rocket, the New Glenn, will use seven BE-4 engines in its first stage, and a single BE-4 in

By Kendra Chamberlain Defense and Aerospace contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne is designing a new large liquid propellant engine that it says will help the US remain competitive in space launches. Aerojet hopes its new rocket booster engine, called the AR1, will help the US move away from using Russian parts for space flight vehicles. (more…)

Lockheed Martin is building tools to help NASA with the hunt for data and more direct evidence of dark energy, the force physicists believe to be behind the universe’s accelerating expansion. The aerospace giant is developing a system of instruments that, if selected for production, will comprise the core tools installed on the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which aims not only to reveal hundreds of millions more stars, but to help study